Whale Cull Plan Sunk as National Delegates Fail to Agree

Whale Cull Plan Sunk as National Delegates Fail to Agree

Discussions suspended for a year after hunters and opponents struggle to find common ground at IWC meeting

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A harvested whale is butchered in Iceland, one of the countries involved in the IWC meeting. (Photograph: Ted Spiegel/Corbis)

Talks on replacing a moratorium on whaling with a controlled cull have hit an impasse and will be suspended for a year, delegates at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) said today.

Negotiators
in the Moroccan city of Agadir said the proposal, aimed at breaking the
long-running deadlock over the emotive issue of whaling, failed because whale-hunting countries and anti-whaling delegations could not find enough common ground.

"This means these talks are finished," said Sue Lieberman, who was heading the delegation of the anti-whaling Pew Environment Group at the talks.

One
national delegate said talks on the proposed changes to whaling policy
had been put on hold until the next annual session of the IWC.

"It seems this means that there is going to be a one-year break in negotiations," said Uruguayan representative Gaston Lasarte.

A moratorium on whaling has been in force for 24 years but Japan, Norway and Iceland
have caught thousands of the animals since the 1980s, arguing that they
are not bound by a total ban. Their actions have met international
condemnation.

The compromise proposal under discussion at the IWC meeting would have lifted the moratorium for 10 years but imposed strict controls on the limited whaling that would then be allowed.

Some environmental groups have given qualified support for the proposal, saying if it was not possible to stop all whaling now, at least it should be limited.

But the proposal was opposed by supporters of whaling who said it amounted to a back-door ban on the practice, and by some anti-whaling campaigners who described it as a sell-out to the whaling lobby.

"We had two days of useful talks but we still haven't got a consensus resolution," said Geoffrey Palmer, head of the New Zealand delegation in Agadir.

"There is an absence of political will to bridge the gaps and to compromise."

Japan's
delegation also blamed a lack of flexibility in the proposals, which
were put forward by the IWC's chairman Cristian Maquieira, for sinking
the talks.

"Unfortunately, there are some members who are unhappy
with the chair's proposal and who do not accept it as a basis for
discussions," the Japanese said in a statement.

Further

In further proof U.S. cops are out of control - cue LAPD killing a homeless man - comes Cleveland's WTF response to a lawsuit by the family of Tamir Rice, shot dead in a park for playing with a toy gun. His death, says the city, was "directly and proximately caused by (his) failure to exercise due care to avoid injury.” To wit: He's to blame for his own murder because he didn't understand he was in the wrong body. The kind that gets shot - the black kind.